He's the love of my life

          Well you can't start telling any story from the middle so lets back it up a little bit.  My husband and I like most couples have had our ups and downs, struggles and successes.  We have 5 wonderful children that we love dearly, but over the years they also gave us both a lot of gray hair, lol.  My hubby has a wonderful sense of humour and he is one of those people that is quick with the come backs.  I think his sense of humour, and his very tight white Levis button fly jeans (which was the fashion way back when) was what attracted me to him all those years ago.  We met while in high school in Ontario.  We are actually very fortunate to this day to still enjoy each others company and know that we have always been soul mates.  I love that he can still make me laugh.  I think he enjoys the fact that I still surprise him with the off the wall things that I spontaneously decide to do that he never sees coming, either that or he has just gotten used to it -- probably the later. 
          So when maturity, marriage and kids and all those other huge responsibilities came along, my hubby decided to return to school and learn a trade so he could make a better living for our family.  For some reason he got it into his head that I would want and should want to do the same thing?  What was he thinking?  I was very happy being a wife and mother and really did not have any plans to change that, but the world around me was changing.  My husband said that one day the children will be all grown up and would leave home and then what would I do with my time.  I struggled and struggled to try to figure out what I should do, what were my interests, how would I fit into this new stage of life.  Then one day I sat down with a cup of tea and pondered about the things I felt I was good at -- and only a few things came to mind.  I loved cooking, I loved children, and I very much enjoy elderly people.  Long story short, I eventually went back to school and took a course to become a Licensed Practical Nurse. 
          My hubby's talents grew and he became known and respected throughout many communities in the North where we first moved to in the 70's.  He's now works in an office setting and holds a Managers position and after 11 years still loves what he does.  My career expanded into areas that I never thought possible.  I worked with the young and old alike.  I worked in hospitals in Acute Care, Emergency, Long Term Care wards, Private Homecare, Physio Therapy and eventually was offered a job doing Telehealth.  Telehealth, is a means of holding medical clinics from remote community locations with Southern large hospital Specialists via video-conferencing so the patient does not have to travel to be seen.  My biggest achievement in this field was making people aware that Speech Therapy for children could be done using Telehealth.  With the help of many, this project became the reason why all of our communities in the North got Telehealth equipment.  The Speech program continues to be a huge success today.  
          So, we built a life.  Bought a home and spent lots of hours and money fixing it up to be something we were proud of.  The kids had now grown up and had all left home and started their own families.  We still have children though...the small 4 pawed kind.  I love my dogs, RaggleMuffin and Chester.      
          The days at work seemed to grow longer and longer and were often stressful.  My husband seemed tired and worn out most evenings or weekends.  He worked a lot of overtime and worked even from home.  I felt like we were in a rut doing the same things day in and day out.  Winters in Inuvik in the Northwest Territories are long and cold and because it is a small town there is not a lot to do or many places to go.  I found myself sighing a lot and becoming frustrated over almost everything.  Were we becoming boring or just missing our full busy lives with our kids when they were at home with us?  Well, something was going on that neither of us were aware of at this point in time. 
          I decided to spice things up!  We'd work hard for many years and there was a world out there to see and I wanted to see some of it.  So, we began travelling.  We went to Tahiti, Florida, Mexico, and went on a few Caribbean cruises.  We had the time of our lives and loved each and every adventure.  I would start planning our next vacation practically the minute we got back from the previous one.  We only did these big trips as our savings permitted but what memories we created. 
          On our last cruise, we took some of our children and grandchildren along with us.  You see, my husband decided to ask me to remarry him and renew our vows on a beach in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands.  It was one of the stops that our cruise ship was to make.  The day was spectacular!  A dream come true.  We felt so alive, young and in love, while we enjoyed the company of our family once again.   Our last land vacation destination was to Belize in Central America.  We stayed for a full month.  We travelled to the rain forest and snorkeled in the ocean.  I love the water and snorkeling with the sea life.  My husband enjoys it too but is not as comfortable with all the sea life as I am.  I swam with stingrays, sharks, and logger-head turtles.  They are all amazing.  The hubby however, does not like to wear flippers while snorkeling and often found that his mustache would let water in under his mask making snorkeling a little difficult at times.  He does enjoy some of the sea life like dolphins and stingrays, but has a fear of sharks as we found out.  When we would go snorkeling I always made it a habit to look back and check on him to see if he was ok the same as he I'm sure did for me, although he was more worried about my losing track of time and swimming off too far following a fish or turtle somewhere.  This particular time though, I looked back and saw him swimming with great frantic speed towards the boat.  I wondered what was going on?  I saw him coughing and choking and destroying his nails trying to claw his way up the side of the boat to get in, with no success I might add.  I saw the guide shouting out to him that it was ok, he won't hurt you!.  At this point I decided to investigate.  So I peered under the water and saw a very big Nurse shark.  Then I knew what had happened and began to laugh.  My poor husband reacted like I would whenever I saw a spider.  Later, he told me that he was doing fine in the water but saw something out of the side of his eye and turned to see this huge shark coming straight at him, the panic set in immediately!  Forgetting he was under water he gasped and the ocean water flooded his orifices and his lungs, hence the choking.  He leaked sea water for a week! 
          We met many expats while we travelled around Belize that had moved to this country to live and retire and thought that if we had this chance this would be something we would love to do.  Placencia, in Belize was so welcoming and comfortable that we felt like we never wanted to leave, but our vacation time was coming to an end and work was calling us back.  The good thing was that now we were talking about retirement and looking forward this next stage of our lives and making plans. 
          Home and settled back into our old routine, we were confident our dreams of retiring and moving to live in Belize would in a short few years become a reality.  It was not long though before I noticed my hubby not feeling well again and complaining of his lack of energy and an over-all sense of just not feeling well.  He went to the doctor and they thought he had a bladder infection, which he seemed to get now and then.  Anyways, an opportunity arose where my husband was asked to go to another community to help out as they were short staffed due to an opening for a Manager in their office that they had been unable to fill.  So he flew down to Fort Simpson and was there for a week.  He called me and said how surprised he was at how beautiful this little community was and it was nice that from there you could drive out to the major cities.  I was very curious to know more.  Several months later, with the Manager job still open in Fort Simpson, he decided to apply for it.  Long story short we moved and put our house up for sale. 
          I had taken a year off work with what the government calls 'leave without pay due to spousal relocation'.  This means I had a year to find another government job or I had to return to the old job in Inuvik or quit.  Little did I know just how scarce government jobs in this small town were.  I was able to find casual positions but just nothing came along for me that was permanent full time.  So, while sitting and having a cup of tea, which seems to be my relaxation time where I am able to think and make decisions, good or bad, that I came up with the idea that thirty years ago I had started to write a Children's book and with family and life and all I never finished it.  So with all this time on my hands I figured now would be a great time to try it again.  This could be a good retirement job for me, I thought.  Being my own boss for a change sounded pretty nice too.  My children and grandchildren would benefit from the books and hopefully many other families too.  With great eagerness I began my new journey into unfamiliar territory.
          It was not long before I noticed my hubby was still not feeling well and again seemed to have an infection of some kind.  So off to the doctor we went.  They sent him out for tests to be done and later decided they wanted to do a scope of his bladder to see what was going on with these infections.  Well the first scope was scheduled in June but didn't happen due to the scope being dropped right before the procedure and it broke.  They told him they would have to rebook him and that the Specialist would not be back until September.  So we went back home and carried on waiting for the call to let us know when the next appointment would be. 
          My husband's 60th birthday was coming up in April of 2013.  I wanted to do something spectacular for him.  I wanted him to know just how much I loved him and wanted to do something that we would both cherish and experience together before our retirement.  One last big trip before the paycheques diminished and became small retirement cheques.  There was a place we wanted to go to that we just had never made it to and that was Europe.  But Europe is such a big big place and we would only have a month there to see as much as we could.  So began the planning and choosing of our destinations.  I always tried to save money as best I could by using Points to lower the cost of our airfare, and using our timeshare to lower the cost of the hotels.  Somehow though these trips were never cheap.  We may not go with a lot of spending money in our pockets but we always managed to have a great time with each other.  I think our just being together and experiencing yet another adventure kept us feeling young and alive.  There was no question, we were in love and truly meant to be together.  We met so many people on these trips and felt so enriched by the cultures we were introduced to, that I believe we were addicted to life itself.
          June 1st, 2012 I booked us to go on a 7 night cruise leaving Venice, going to Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and back to Venice.  I thought I would build the rest of our trip, the land portion, around the cruise.  So the penny pinching began for the best birthday gift ever. 
          One day the phone rang and it was the doctor's office telling us that Neil had been rescheduled to go in for a scope of his bladder in early September.  We arrived for the appointment and the procedure was surprisingly short.  When the love of my life returned he looked numb.  He hugged me and held me tight.  When I asked what was wrong, he said "I have Cancer!  They said my bladder is full of it!"  I was in shock as was he.  The nurse told us what the next steps were and that an appointment would be made for him to see a Urologist in Edmonton.  They would be in touch.  We left, only got part way down the hallway when we embraced each other so tightly I could hardly breathe.  We both cried.  Our world as we new it had just shattered before our eyes.  The reality of what this meant had not really sunk in yet, but it would......
          Till next time, Tori.